About Political Cortex

What if there was a place you could go where you were the
star of the show -- where the voice of the community shared the front page
with the site’s full-time writers?

What if you there was a place where you could not only contribute
your own views but also help to determine the content produced by the community
as a whole? What if this place ran like a Democracy?

What if there was a place where higher thought and mutual
respect combined with a culture of independent, investigative journalism to
present a new paradigm in online netroots media?

And what if there was a place that put together a talented
group of core bloggers – and then nudged them to the side to make room
for the voice of the community within which they
gathered?

These are the questions we asked ourselves. And this site is our response.

We
hope Political Cortex can be that place.

Originality

The first thought that probably pops into many people’s heads is, “What
makes Political Cortex any different form all the rest?” That’s
a valid question, and one we considered when putting this site together.

That’s why we strove to remove the community from the periphery and
placed it center stage on the front page.

That’s why we implemented a Blog Democracy via a special community editing
and voting process unique to the political blogosphere.

That’s why we’ve incorporated new and original features such as
Keyword Tags, advanced diary voting, and “Quick Posting”.

And that’s why we hope to foster a culture of journalistic
Independence that inspires a new generation of bold truth-seekers.

People

Although Political Cortex will be driven by the powerful voice of the Cortex
community, it will also have the benefit of a remarkably talented group of
core writers to set the journalistic standard and provide structure to the
Cortex’s otherwise free-form environment.

The founders, whose vision has guided the creation of Political Cortex, include:

Political Cortex is structured around a community software platform called ‘Scoop’.
Although you might have come across some very impressive Scoop sites in the
past, you’ve never come across one quite like this. At the Cortex,
we make you the star of the show. Sure, we have an extremely talented group
of regular writers. But one of the primary goals of the site is to give a
much greater voice to the community – to make YOU the star.

At the Cortex, you’re not limited to posting comments or creating diaries
as you are at most sites. Yes, we have those available to you as well,
but then we take it a step further -- offering an entire spectrum of features
that allow you to show-off your grand insights, observations, opinions, and
analyses. In fact, the entire central column on the front page is dedicated
exclusively to community submissions.

Blogocracy: Even more innovative is the Democratic nature
by which the community’s front-page submissions are decided. In essence,
you, the registered members of the Cortex Community VOTE on who you think should
be posted to the front page. Yes, you can register. It’s free and it
gives you total access to the complete interactive community experience.

Rest assured, however, that Voting ‘Yay’ or ‘Nay’ is
just the beginning. In brief, here are some of the things you can do as a registered
user (Each of these will be explained in detail the FAQ):

Submit your Writing: You can submit your personally
authored articles to the voting queue and possibly have your work displayed
prominently on the front page.

Vote on Submissions: You can vote on others’ article
submissions.

Enroll in Blogosphere Writing 101, 201, and 301 (advanced
studies): You can submit your articles and diaries to the ‘editing
queue’ where you will receive the invaluable editorial feedback of
the community. Yes they will criticize your work, but we cannot stress enough
how valuable this process is for both ensuring top-quality writing on the
front page AND serving as a training and proving ground for would-be progressive
political journalists, writers, and bloggers. This is the place to go if
you REALLY want to know what works when it comes to writing for the people.

Write Diaries: You can write ‘diaries’.
They aren’t really diaries in the ‘dear diary’ sense of the
word, they’re more like ‘journals’ in the ‘I keep a
journal’ sense.

Recommend Other’s Diaries: You can ‘recommend’ others’ diaries
and likewise have your diaries ‘recommended’ by others. ‘Recommends’ are
another sort of community vote that can potentially ‘raise’ your
diaries from the ‘Recent Diaries’ section to the more prominent ‘Recommended’ Diaries
listing.

Post Comments: You can post comments in any story,
diary, or quick post

Reply to Comments: You can reply to specific comments
and the author of the original comment will be notified that you did.

Rate Comments: You can rate others comments based
on what you feel they add to the conversation -- and your comments will be
rated by others as well.

Become a ‘Trusted User’: You can build
up ‘Mojo’ and receive ‘Trusted User’ Status which essentially
rewards you with a warm, fuzzy sense of communal respect. It also give you
increased power to rate others’ comments more forcefully.

Mailing List – Newsletter: You can receive
the ‘Cortex Digest’ Daily, Weekly, or Monthly via email. The newsletter
delivers a summary of headlines and excerpts that appear on the Cortex front
page to keep you up to date no matter where you are.

Identity: You get your own Username. Have you ever
wanted to be ‘Superman’, ‘Mother Nature’, or ‘Hugh
Jass’? Now’s your chance. Get ‘em while you can.

‘Hotlist’ Bookmarks: You can bookmark
stories and check back to redress an ongoing discussion.

Welcome to Political Cortex!

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.